FierceHealthIT

National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo, in an internal memo sent to ONC staffers and emailed to FierceHealthIT late Friday, announced a slew of organizational changes at the agency. The changes also are set to appear in the Federal Register on June 3...

"The concept and the power of special interests is alive and well, particularly when you're talking about a $35 billion program," Probst said, referring to the Meaningful Use incentive program. "The federal advisory committees tried to filter through that, but I'm not sure that was always accomplished."

In an expansion of its Consumer Pledge program, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has challenged grantees of ONC's state health information exchange program to increase consumers' access to their own health information. Participating states are being asked to make "concrete progress" in the six months to get healthcare data into consumers' hand so they can share it with family members and multiple providers... Read More »

Although roughly half of physicians in a recent survey said they planned to apply to the Meaningful Use incentive program in 2011, few would have qualified for payments because their electronic health record systems would not have met enough of the Stage 1 core requirements, according to a study published this week in Health Affairs. Read More »